PANCHAYAT DYNAMICS: COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS OF MEMBER’S PROFILE AND THEIR ROLE PERFORMACE

The study was conducted in the Chhotaudepr district of Gujarat state and involved 120 Gram panchayat members as respondent. Ex-post facto research design was used in the study. The results indicated that 65.83 per cent of the resndents were in the middle age group, while 50.83 per cent had a primary level of school education. Furthermore, 65.83 per cent of the gra panchayat members had medium size of families with five to eight members, and 58.33 per cent of them had up to 5 years of experience as gram panchayat member. Hence, 89.16 per cent of gram panchayat members belonged to scheduled Tribe category and 47.50 per cent of them had membership in one organization. In case of political contact, it was observed that 97.50 per cent, 80.00 per cent and 58.30 per cent of the gram panchayat members had no any contact with minister, MP and MLA respectively. In terms of annual income, 47.50 per cent of the responsents had annual income up to Rs. 1,00,000/- and 48.33 per cent of them were engaged in agriculture + animal husbandry as occupation. 45.00 per cent of the gram panchayat members had high level of knowledge about gram panchayat work, while 42.50 per cent of them had high level of co-ordination ability. Additionally, 47.50 per cent) of the gram panchayat members had high level of communication ability. The independent variables viz. knowledge about gram panchayat work, co-ordination ability and communication ability had positive and highly significant correlation with the role performance of gram panchayat members, whereas age, education, size of family, experience as gram panchayat member, caste, social participation, political contact, annual income and occupation failed to show any significant correlation with their role performance.